Stephen Roney's Blog, page 176

The Words of the Prophets are Erased from the Tenement Halls

 

I am horrified to learn what has happened to the Tenement Museum in New York.

I saw it perhaps 12 or 15 years ago, and it was a high point of the trip. Although I can claim no personal ties to that history, I grew up to my Irish grandmother’s rendition of “The Sidewalks of New York.” It was a kind of anthem to North American Irish. We looked to New York as a kind of ethnic capital, since there was little left to us back in Ireland.

Growing up, there were still areas of Montreal and Kingston, too, that we were told never to go to as kids. They were the tenements our Irish ancestors had inhabited. We were still to insecure in our status to be comfortable about them. Be seen there, and we might easily be taken for “that kind” of Irish. Goose Village, Griffintown, Point St. Charles. In Kingston, the entire north quadrant was as if roped off. In Toronto, it was Cabbagetown, Corktown, St. James Town.

I have been warned on several occasions, by women, almost on first meeting, that their mothers had made them promise never to become involved with anyone Irish. In college, the student newspaper once published an opi9nion piece titled “Let’s sink Ireland for a Day.”

The historic discrimination against the Irish, or the Jews, or the Poles, has not abated; it is still common. It is the life experience of many now living; Jews are still the most common target of all hate crimes. Yet now we Irish, Jews, and Poles, are having our own history here erased while being falsely accused of being the “oppressors” of other groups with whom our ancestors rarely came in contact. Or when they did, met as equals and most often comrades at the bottom of the greased pole. 

I suspect it is just a continuation of the same discrimination; just a new excuse to discriminate against the Irish or the Jews, while using them as a scapegoat for the sins of others. Like scapegoating poor Scots-Irish “rednecks” in the South for supposed discrimination and slavery, when their own ancestors never owned slaves, and came as indentured servants, a kind of term-limited slavery, themselves.

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In the Bleak Midwinter

 

It is time for Advent music. 

Inthe real world, nothing else seems to matter as much.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Racism and Tribalism

 

Those on the left are these days portraying what they call “racism” as something permeating all our institutions. Most recently, the Salvation Army has endorsed this concept. It warns of “systemic racism,” “the well-institutionalized pattern of discrimination that cuts across major political, economic and social organizations in a society,” leading to “inequity.”

Historically speaking, “racism” is only a recent problem. The concept of race in the human context is more or less a product of Social Darwinism, from the scientism of the 19th century. Before that, people were aware of breeding, heredity, and culture—that is, social class—but not race. Nor, before that time, did the average person in most parts of in the world have any experience of people of races other than their own.

That’s too recent for anything like an original sin. Any structures that pre-exist Darwin, like the US Constitution, or the English common law, or liberal democracy, are necessarily innocent of the charge.

Tribalism—seeing only members of your own culture or social group as fully human—is an older problem. It is a universal and instinctive tendency, but obviously more thoroughly indulged in tribal societies, and less with a social philosophy or culture that claims to apply to all mankind. Accordingly, the best means to reduce the tendency to tribalism is to insist on the doctrine of universal human rights and support the major universalist religions like Christianity.

Yet this is exactly what the modern left want to tear down. They are quite openly pushing for a return to tribalism and group conflict.

The Devil commonly uses words to mean their opposite.

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Hopeful News--or at Least, Hopeful Thought

 

While initial reports of the new Omicron variant of Covid were alarming, the news has more recently looked a little brighter. The South African doctor who first detected the strain says she has only seen mild cases. 

If Omicron is extremely contagious yet causes only mild symptoms, it may actually work like a vaccine, quickly inoculating large populations. 

Here’s hoping…

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Armageddon Nervous

 

The news is coming in fast right now--about the new Omicron variant of COVID. It sounds as though it is far more virulent than the previous strains, as contagious as anything we’ve ever seen. Just when it looked as though we were about to come out of the pandemic, down we go again. I first heard of the new variant yesterday. Today, it is already reported from seven African countries, Belgium, Israel, Hong Kong, and South Korea. Hospitalizations in one South Africa province have doubled in the past day. The New York Times is running live updates.

Speculation is that it may be able to bypass the vaccinations, since it has mutated significantly. Nobody is prepared to say yet whether it is more or less deadly than previous strains. One doctor says lockdowns are not going to do much against this one.

Meantime, yesterday the abstract of a study was released suggesting that the mRNA vaccines significantly increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Stock markets are taking a hit.

It begins to feel as though we are in a downward spiral. It reminds me of the pace of Orson Welles’s radio version of War of the Worlds.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Shut Up and Think for Yourself

 

Christina Wyman has written a piece for NBC decrying parents who want to interfere with their children’s education. She laments that “parents think they have the right to control teaching and learning because their children are the ones being educated.” “It’s sort of like entering a surgical unit thinking you can interfere with an operation simply because the patient is your child.” After all, “Teaching, too, is a science. Unless they’re licensed and certified, parents aren’t qualified to make decisions about curricula.”

This is eleven different kinds of wrong. It is wrong on every point. And not list a little wrong on them. 

To begin with, overseeing their children’s education is the primary duty of parents.

"The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute." The right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable. – Catechism of the Catholic Church

Wyman cites the analogy of medicine. Fine. Here the patient has the right to choose their own doctor, and then to refuse any given treatment—for themselves and for their child. Let it be so in education. Let parents choose the school and curriculum.

And make the teachers liable to be sued for malpractice, as doctors can be.

I’m good with that.

But unlike medicine, teaching is not a science. It is not evidence-based. There is no empirical—which is to say, scientific—evidence that certified teachers teach better than a random person off the street. In fact, the evidence shows the opposite. Those who are homeschooled do better than those who come up through the public schools on standardized tests and in university—literally, then, a random member of the public can do better. Those who attend private schools, where teachers do not have to hold professional qualifications, also do better. Sending your child to a “qualified teacher” is the worst available option.

Wyman goes on to assert that “An educator’s primary goal is to teach students to think.” This is an odd thing to say to justify refusing parents the right to think about their children’s schooling. The public schools deliberately repress this, and were designed to do so in the early 20th century. One of the great attractions to private schools is that they, unlike the public schools, do teach students how to think. That means teaching them philosophy, logic, rhetoric, formal debating. Subjects definitive of the private schools, and rarely seen in public schools. It would mean teaching using the Socratic Method. What public school does?

The question: is Wyman that stupid, or that corrupt?

And how stupid or corrupt are our politicians if they accept this?

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Paper Freedoms

 

Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

My Filipina wife agrees that one big problem with living in Canada is the lack of freedom of speech. She notes that one could speak more freely in Saudi Arabia. I have heard the same from Polish friends—that you could speak more freely in the old Communist East Bloc than you can in Canada. 

It is not just that saying the wrong thing can get you two years in prison. A slight misstep can cost you your job, your career, your family.

In Canada, you need to think very carefully before you say anything, and you are still liable to get into trouble. Because the goalposts keep moving.

It is ironic that freedom of speech is guaranteed in the Canadian constitution. But a constitution is only a piece of paper, if it is not honoured by the government and the courts.

We are doing this liberal democracy thing wrong.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Ivermectin--or Something

 

We may be seeing the end of the virus...

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

The Weimar States of America

 

With its reaction to Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal, at least a large portion of the left has surely shown themselves to be delusional, and a danger to themselves and others. Neither logic nor evidence can penetrate their “narrative.” Even after the trial and verdict, many are insisting that Rittenhouse was a “white supremacist” who transported a weapon illegally across state lines in order to kill blacks. Assuming it was an expression of left-wing ideology—we do not know yet—what could be a more dramatic image of pure evil attacking good than the video of an SUV ploughing into a Christmas parade? It has become this stark. Now parents who complain about their children’s schooling are “domestic terrorists.” Anyone who defends the doctrine that all men are created equal is a “racist” and a “white supremacist.”

This poses an eternal problem for a liberal democracy. What do you do with a popular movement that itself denies liberal democracy? What happens if, as in Weimar Germany, it manages to attract a plurality of voters?

Ed Driscoll has put out a video, based on Harold Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, that posits that America was seeded with the same ideas as Weimar Germany beginning in the 1920s. It all came originally from German thinkers like Nietzsche and Freud—not to mention Marx. Bloom summarizes it as “value relativism.”

History tells us where that ends. It would seem to be an inevitability.

For heathen heart that puts her trust

   In reeking tube and iron shard,

All valiant dust that builds on dust,

   And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,

For frantic boast and foolish word—

Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

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Letterkenny Problems

 

Nothing I love better than a classic Canadian small-town comedy, except perhaps for a classic Canadian coming-of-age film. Why is it these are the classic Canadian themes, and why is it they speak to me so deeply?

Having binged through Corner Gas and Schitt’s Creek, I am now on Letterkenny. All three share what is most characteristic about Canadian rural comedies: the rustics are the normal ones, and the city folk are the odd outsiders. I trace the trope back to Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches, with at least an assist from Anne of Green Gables.

The characters on Letterkenny are deliberately two-dimensional. This means nobody really gets to show much acting chops. Even so, I think Evan Stern as Roald is a standout. Nathan Dales is also very convincing as Daryl. Reilly seems almost real.

On the other side, I find K. Trevor Wilson’s portrayal of Squirrelly Dan annoying. He randomly adds an “s” sound to the end of words, supposedly in imitation of a rural Ontario accent. To a linguist, and to someone who grew up partly in rural Ontario, this is gratingly wrong. The “s” should only be added to “you” to express the plural, and to verbs in the simple present tense, not randomly. Stupid city guy. Wilson grew up in Toronto.

Other characters I find a bit too cartoonish to warm to are Gail with her weird stance, Stewart with his hostile glare, McMurray with his mumble, and Dickson with his auctioneer shtick. 

But the show is just so full of wordplay and inside jokes that it is irresistible.

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